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The outpouring of vicious vitriol in the comments on my article Joe the Racist leads me to wonder if the inmates are taking over the asylum. My article on Joe Wilson's deplorable outburst against the President was tightly reasoned and consistent with the analyses of many others, including Jimmy Carter. The comments, however, included questions of my mental fitness to write anything (tell that to the publishers of my six books), along with words such as "idiot" and even worse. Why such strong reactions, all on the same side of the proverbial fence, the Right Wing side?Many of my previous OpEdNews pieces were considerably more controversial than Joe the Racist, but failed to generate any such outpouring; indeed, in a few cases, I was disappointed at the lack of reaction to an Op Ed. Since OpEdNews is one of the major websites for liberals and progressives, it is important to analyze the new negativity.
Of course, it could be that Joe the Racist was a dumb article, but there are other explanations; I am admittedly not neutral, but I wonder if the Rush Limbaugh-Fox News gang have taken on the destruction of OpEdNews as a forum for liberal and progressive views as their new task.
That might explain the lack of balance in reactions to my pedestrian piece on Joe Wilson, as the Right Wing worms come out of the woodwork. Further evidence along those lines is even more persuasive, as one reads the contempt with which liberals and even moderate democrats are castigated in the comments on my piece. Some of those comments came close to hate mail.
As Harry Truman said, if you can't stand the heat, you should get out of the kitchen. I don't mind the heat; I would just like to know who has turned up the stove and who is stirring up the OpEdNews pot. We should all keep an eye open as to what is really going on here. And, needless to say, we should reclaim our particular asylum before the inmates really ruin it. America needs all the liberal, progressive voices it can get!
